


We're Cool for the Summer

by kitbuckle



Series: I Just Wanna Play With You [1]
Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Backstory, Gen, Getting to Know Each Other, M/M, Meeting the Parents, Summer Fic, and, and the siblings, and the uncles and aunts and cousins, boys having feelings, but mostly it's just, summer 2015, warning for Andover assholes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-28
Updated: 2016-09-28
Packaged: 2018-08-18 07:21:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,557
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8153786
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kitbuckle/pseuds/kitbuckle
Summary: Nursey invites Dex to visit over the summer after their first year. Dex invites him back."Honestly, Dex didn’t know what Nursey was thinking. Sure, they’d chirped about missing each other over winter break, but Dex never thought it would go past chirping...but the plans had been made. Nursey’s parents would pick them up from move-out and drive them back to New York, they’d stay for a week, Dex and Nursey would fly up to Rockland, stay for a week, and Nursey would fly back."





	

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "Cool for the Summer" by Demi Lovato. (And honestly, take a look at those lyrics with nurseydex in mind. Just do it.) Characters (the familiar ones, at least) from Ngozi, may angels sing hallelujahs to her name.

**I.**

Honestly, Dex didn’t know what Nursey was thinking. Sure, they’d chirped about missing each other over winter break, but Dex never thought it would go past chirping. (And yeah, maybe Dex had been happy to come back to Samwell in January, but that was more about the team and Samwell in general—about how much he’d realized he’d already changed in one semester, and how he wasn’t sorry about it. It had nothing to do with Nursey specifically.) And it didn’t make a lot of sense, geographically. Dex lived three and a half hours north of Samwell; Nursey lived closer to four hours south, in his brownstone in Manhattan.

And then there was the awkwardness of money. Dex spent a week doing research on gas prices and airfare. He ended up selling the trips to his parents in a PowerPoint where he argued that the money they’d save by not driving down to get him and not taking time off work to do so would balance out the cost of the flight from New York to Rockland, which Dex would pay half of out of what he made from working at the craft store—which the team must never know about _ever_. He had two little sisters and a foster mom who liked to quilt, so he knew his crafting shit, but the chirping. _The chirping_.

Anyway, by the end of the call, Dex still felt guilty that he’d miss a week working for his uncles, but the plans had been made. Nursey’s parents would pick them up from move-out and drive them back to New York, they’d stay for a week, Dex and Nursey would fly up to Rockland, stay for a week, and Nursey would fly back.

-

“Um,” Nursey said, standing in the doorway of Dex’s dorm room. It was half-packed already. Nursey’s parents were arriving day after next. Dex paid attention because it was the closest he’d ever seen Nursey to nervous. “I feel like I should mention something.”

Nervous in a serious way, too, not in a way Dex should chirp. “Okay?”

Bitty rambled when keyed up—Nursey fish-mouthed in a way that made Dex think he used to be a rambler, but trained himself out of it.

“It’s about my parents,” Nursey said. “And if it makes you uncomfortable or whatever—well, you can fuck right off, first of all, but I’ll refund your flight—”

“Spit it out, Nurse.”

“I have two moms.” Dex didn’t say anything. Nursey went on, gathering steam, “Mom and Dad broke up when I was two, Mom married Mama, and I grew up with them because Dad likes his work more than other people. And Mom's a Pakistani Muslim with the headscarf and everything, and I usually don’t tell people because it’s a good way to see if they’re unchill or not, and anyone who’s weird about my moms isn’t someone I want in my life, but I swear to God, Dex—”

Dex grabbed Nursey’s shoulders, shook him a little. “Breathe, idiot.” Nursey breathed, green eyes big. Dex didn’t need to ask why Nursey’s freaking out, but he did have options. Chirp, take offense, pretend like this conversation didn’t just happen. What came out of Dex’s mouth was, “I’ve never seen you pray.”

Nursey blinked, thrown. “What?”

“Muslims pray like, five times a day or something? I’ve never seen you do it. Which, I mean, it’s your business.” Dex’s hands were still on Nursey’s shoulders; Dex removed them, used them to shrug. Nursey still looked a little dumbfounded, but he started to smile.

“Yeah, I’m…not religious about it. Mama’s like, Mexican Catholic, so they’re kinda letting me do my own thing.”

“Cool,” Dex said. “You gonna help me pack or just stand there?”

Nursey put a hand in Dex’s hair and shook Dex’s head very gently, like he did when he wanted to express affection without getting chirped for sappy-ass words. Dex punched him in the arm.

-

Dex always knew, on some level, that Nursey had as little chill as Dex had—that’s one of the things that made Nursey unbearable sometimes, his hypocritical insistence that nothing affected him. Dex had never considered that it might be a coping mechanism until he met Nursey’s moms.

Azima Nurse had Nursey’s nose and cheekbones and eye shape (but not the color). She wore a Samwell Freshman Orientation t-shirt, dark jeans, and a white headscarf that looked hella good with her skin—so empirically good that Dex didn’t feel weird about noticing. She smiled a lot, but had the bearing and organizational capabilities of a drill sergeant.

Her wife, Guadalupe Carrillo (“Call me Lupe, _guapito_.” “ _Mama_.”) took great pleasure in shaming Dex and Nursey for how little they could carry down to the van they rented. Lupe didn’t look it, but by the end of the loading process, Dex was pretty sure she could beat Holster in arm-wrestling.

“Probably,” Nursey said fondly, “but don’t mention it to her, or she’ll make us drive over to the Haus to prove it before we go.”

“ _Orale_!” Lupe said once they were on the road. “ _Guapito_ , I used to win _thousands_ of pesos off macho morons in the bars before I moved to New York.” She said it gleefully, and Dex fell a little in love. “Like Karen Allen in _Indiana Jones_.”

Azima kissed her hand. “You outlaw.”

“You love it.”

They held hands until they cross the Connecticut state line. They asked Dex questions about his major, living in Maine, playing with Nursey, what he wanted to do when he graduated. It was to them that Dex said the words, “I don’t really know. I like computers, and I know there’s more for me to learn, so I wanna learn it.” They didn’t go blank-eyed and unsure—they praised him for his passion, enough to make his ears go hot.

Nursey chirped him for crushing on his moms. Dex said, “They’re nice!” and Nursey was too pleased to chirp him more.

-

Nursey’s house (apartment? brownstone?!?) was imposing from the outside, but it seemed…smaller than Dex was expecting. Inside, the walls were soft gray, the furniture dark wood upholstered with cream. Color burst off of canvases on the walls—some of it Azima’s, some of it Lupe’s, they told him—and. It was more stylish than what Dex was used to, but. It didn’t feel like a museum instead of a home. It felt lived in. He wasn’t afraid of breaking the sofa or chairs by sitting on them wrong.

Pablo helped with that. Nursey rarely mentioned his dog, but he and Shitty liked to chirp about her name being Pablo. (“Brah, what do you know about her gender identity?”) Nursey had described her as a poodle mix, which made Dex think of cartoony spheres of fluff, a curled tail, and a bow on each ear. In reality, Pablo was sweet, slobbery, and the color of a snickerdoodle. The top of her head barely reached his and Nursey’s knees.

(“Honestly, _guapito_ , we don’t know what she is. Derek volunteers at the shelters, when he has time, and he came home with her after his first semester in Boston. I didn’t have it in me to tell him no.”

Dex watched Pablo greet Nursey with slobbery dog kisses, watched Nursey grin for the first time ever in Dex’s vicinity, like a clip straight out of those Dogs Welcome Soldiers Home compilations Bitty and Holster watched when they needed a good cry. Behind Nursey’s back, Dex nodded at Lupe. He wouldn’t have had it in him either.)

Dex learned several important things related to Nursey’s house. First, the Nurse-Carrillo household considered itself a renegade one among the Upper West Siders—“uptight gringo _pandejos_ ,” Lupe called them—and was proud of it. They saw the brownstone itself as a whopping “fuck you/fuck off” to the rest of the neighborhood.

“I paint, like Lupe,” Azima said, “and I write. Those are my loves, but they are not for the world. I worked hard, sacrificed so much,” she shared a sad smile with Nursey, “to show the world how successful a Pakistani Muslim woman could be, and I used their symbols so they could not ignore it.” She said this with steel in her voice, and only cheek kisses from Lupe _and_ Nursey (given immediately and without asking) softened the line of her shoulders again.

Second, despite the large rooms, there weren’t that many of them. Dex bunked with Nursey, because there was no guest room and Dex felt weird about using the futon in the office. Azima and Lupe had a great air mattress, but Dex had never been able to sleep well on them. Nursey’s bed was big enough for both of them and comfortable as _hell_ , so yeah. That happened. Dex, who had shared beds with practical _strangers_ before, freaked out about the etiquette (is it okay to touch? how close is too close? what if I like, _spoon_ him while we’re asleep?) until Nursey hit him in the face with a pillow and said, “Chill, dude.”

-

Dex had been wondering what they’d do in New York. From Nursey’s texts over Christmas break, he didn’t do much that could be shared—blogging, writing, walking Pablo—but that was Nursey’s problem, not Dex’s. Not that Dex could afford whatever Nursey did other than boring shit, anyway.

Looking back, Dex had to acknowledge that he should’ve known better.

Azima left for Amsterdam early the day after they arrived in Manhattan. Lupe’s time was so consumed by her gallery and recording studio that Dex barely saw her. Nursey seemed used to it. (Dex found it too easy to imagine Nursey alone with his dog in his empty house, staring at his moms’ paintings and writing melancholy poems—so he didn’t.)

Dex woke up his first morning in Manhattan alone with Nursey in Nursey’s bed. Nursey was already sitting up, poking at his MacBook. “Bro, how do you feel about museums?” Nursey asked.

Dex responded with a very sleep-groggy, “Wha?”

“Museums,” Nursey said. “History, art, transit, fucking harbor defense. The Bronx Zoo is pay what you will on Wednesdays.”

Museums. A top ten item on Places You Can Go For Free. That Nursey thought of. By himself. Dex sat up. “What?”

“The Natural History Museum makes you pay, which is whatever,” Nursey said, with a dismissive wave of his hand. “But the Met only _suggests_ ticket prices, so you can pay what you want.”

“And here I thought you were gonna force me to climb the Statue of Liberty,” Dex said. He’d checked the ticket prices back at Samwell. Dropping twenty-plus dollars on every sight to see was not in Dex’s budget.

“Bro, my mom already got us tickets to the crown,” Nursey said. “Ellis Island, too. But that’s only gonna take up today.”

This—Azima’s generosity, Nursey’s consideration—would take time to compute. To buy that time, Dex asked, “What’s in Manhattan?”

Nursey smirked. “Hamilton Grange and the Harbor Defense Museum.” He squinted a little—a sure sign his chill-o-meter was experiencing a dramatic fall. “We’ve got tickets for that on Saturday, by the way. When my mom gets home.”

“Tickets for what? Thought we were talking about free shit.”

“Hamilton,” Nursey said, rolling his eyes. “The musical. I know you only listen to dad rock, but you’re not _Jack_.”

“Fuck you,” Dex said easily, because he’d have to have been deaf to miss the historically themed rapping Bitty, Ransom, Holster, and Nursey had been up to. He also knew, due to all their moaning, that tickets were expensive and hard to come by.

Something must have shown in his face. “Chill, dude,” said Nursey. “We got the tickets like, months ago.”

“Okay, asshole, then why didn’t you say anything when you got them, _like, months ago_?”

Nursey shoved him. Dex moved the MacBook and shoved back. They wrestled until they fell off the bed and onto the air mattress, still inflated from the night before. Pablo skittered into the room and pounced on them, licking their cheeks until they were laughing too hard to continue.

-

Spending prolonged periods of time alone with Nursey turned out to be easier than Dex expected. They still argued—Dex couldn’t imagine a universe where they didn’t—but it felt more like banter than the barbs they threw when they were first paired up as d-men. Nursey knew his way around the city like he knew poems. He tripped at least once every other block (“You fucking menace, Nurse.”), but he was confident about when they had to leave Point A to reach Point B on time. Dex appreciated it, but it gave Nursey a crinkle between his stupid eyebrows that he only got when arguing—serious, emotionally invested arguing—or reading a poem he didn’t like.

The crinkle disappeared when they got on the boat for Liberty and Ellis Islands. When they stood in Lady Liberty’s crown, looking out at a city made of islands and the familiar, vast stretch of the Atlantic. When a lesbian couple from L.A. mistook them for boyfriends and Nursey responded to their offer to take a picture with, “Please, before he can say no,” and handed them his phone. When they took stupid selfies wearing foam crowns in the gift shop. When, after the audio tour on Ellis Island, they tried to find the surname of anyone they knew on the open pages of the immigrant register.

They went back to the brownstone. They took Pablo on a run through Central Park. Nursey browned beef, Dex sliced vegetables, and they ate sloppy tacos while watching SportsCenter and Chopped.

Nursey was still annoying. He nearly brained Dex with the frying pan. He let Pablo interrupt their run whenever she found something to smell. He held the clicker hostage when Dex wanted to change the channel.

Nursey was still annoying as fuck. That would never change.

-

They ran with Pablo every morning and evening in Central Park. They went to Hamilton Grange and the Harbor Defense Museum. They browsed the one-dollar stacks outside the Strand until they got to the last cart, then walked all the way back to the front to pay. Nursey had slim books of poetry by people Dex had never heard of. Dex bought six little novels he thought Kat and Libby would like—usually they had to wait for library to hold a sale for such great prices, since the book exchange at home closed.

On Wednesday, they took the whole day to visit the Bronx Zoo. Nursey moaned about how long their train (subway? Dex didn’t know the difference) took to get there, but it was…not a bad day. Nursey had a weird thing for cuttlefish, apparently. Dex liked the dim, mild interior of the reptile house. They made up stupid stories for the animals that hung out in groups, like the lions and the bison. They saw the sea lions and penguins get fed, which was not all that unlike watching the team descend on the dining hall after morning practice.

Wednesday night, they got back to the brownstone and found Lupe bowed over a beautiful Cordoba guitar. Nursey grinned wide and kissed her on the top of her head on his way to the kitchen. “Sweet track, Mama.”

Lupe grimaced. “I can’t find the right chord.”

Dex found himself sitting next to her. She picked the strings instead of strumming them, and she held her hand differently, but it was still a guitar. He knew enough to tell she was good.

Lupe must have caught him looking, because she asked him, “You play, _guapito_?”

“Not like that,” Dex said, gesturing at her fingers. “Campfire songs and classic rock, mostly.”

She held out her Cordoba. “Show me.” She said it like a coach, or Lardo in manager mode. Not to be denied. Dex sat. The strings weren’t metal like his beat-up acoustic back home—these felt smoother under his fingers. He strummed the opening hook of _Wanted Dead Or Alive_. It didn’t sound the same on the Cordoba, maybe because it was a nicer instrument, maybe because it held its tuning for more than thirty seconds. It sounded…less _twangy_ , was the best Dex could describe it. Less like a rocker trying to be a cowboy, and more like the real thing.

Dex stopped when he got to where the vocals came in—he didn’t have Bon Jovi’s voice, and the guitar part wasn’t as cool. When he looked up, Nursey had returned with three mugs, and he was staring at Dex.

Lupe whacked Nursey in the stomach. “Why didn’t you tell me you friend knows _guitarra_?”

“I didn’t know,” Nursey said. Carefully, he set the mugs on the coffee table (though not on coasters, the heathen). “He never mentioned it.”

Dex shrugged. “I don’t have a guitar at school.”

“ _No le dé a uno de los tuyos, Mamá_ ,” Nursey said, “ _no le va a gustar_.”

And of fucking course Nursey could speak Spanish. He was probably fluent in Pakistani, too. (Was “Pakistani” even a language? He decided not to ask.) Dex’s body and face flushed with heat—he and Nursey were better, but there were still things about him that made Dex want to punch a wall.

“ _No se preocupe, mi’jo_ ,” Lupe said. Nursey frowned. She turned to Dex and said, “I’ll go get another one. Keep playing.” She went upstairs and came back with a second Cordoba. While she was gone, Dex ducked his head so he didn’t have to look at Nursey as he played the first thing that came to his fingers: _Brown Eyed Girl_. He liked his voice even less than he liked his ears or his freckles, but he sang the lyrics in his head. He did not picture brown skin instead of brown eyes. He didn’t.

-

Thursday—and Dex would only remember it was Thursday because of what happened on the days on either side—they ran in the morning, once with Pablo and once without, and did push-up and sit-up contests on the grass in the park. Nursey even made them do some yoga stretches. Their banter was on a weird meta level where they chirped each other to just admit it was a competition, while fully knowing it was a competition. Nursey got texts on their cool-down walk back to the brownstone. Texts that made his shoulders tighten, though his expression got more and more bland.

Nursey had talked about going to the Met (the art museum, not the opera) that morning, but instead he laid on the floor in the living room, even after Dex told him he was done in the shower. Nursey, now on his stomach and staring at his phone, just nodded. Dex sat on his back.

“Rude.”

“Use your words, English major.”

“A guys from Andover’s having a party,” Nursey said. “Old teammate. Ammi found out. She and Mama think I should go.” Nursey _sighs_ , what the fuck. “Don’t want me to lose all the connections I made.”

Dex had been told, multiple times, that Andover was full of _whack white conservatives_ like him—except not at all like him, because they attended a private boarding school in the nice part of Boston. “If they were so terrible, why’d you play four years of hockey with them?”

“Shitty,” Nursey said. “He was a big reason. I love hockey. Not like Jack does, but. Dudes can play together without clicking off-ice.” Nursey smirked up at Dex. “Sometimes. It was chill.”

“Do you really hate them all?”

“Nah. My bro Spence’ll be there. They were my better hockey half.”

“They?”

“Yeah.” Nursey wriggled until he could turn over under Dex’s weight. He had the same look he’d had when he told Dex he had two moms. “Spence likes _they_ instead of he or she. They’re nonbinary.”

Whatever Dex’s opinions on gender and that kind of crap, Nursey was serious-nervous and Dex’s ma raised him to be a courteous guest. He felt he had to set something straight.

“Dude, I know we’ve fought in the past, and we still argue, but I’m not gonna shit all over the people you care about. If Spence wants to be called _they_ , that’s what I’ll call them.”

Nursey pushed Dex’s face to the side to break the moment. “Thanks for being chill, man.”

“Shut the fuck up.”

Nursey insisted it wouldn’t be weird for Dex to go, too. Dex didn’t believe him until he met Cush, Andover goalie alum and the host of the smoke-filled party.

(“He got the nickname before we realized how much he smokes, swear to God,” Nursey said.

“Language,” said Dex.)

“Nurrrrrsey, my bro!” Cush looked like a darker-haired, post-chop Shitty. He was ‘stache-less, with redder eyes and lazier movements, but he wore nothing but ripped skinny jeans and a crocheted vest.

“Cushmeister,” Nursey said, embracing him. “’Swawesome rager, my man.”

“Isn’t it just.” Cush blinked slowly at Dex. “You must be a Weasley.”

“This is Dex, my d-man at Samwell,” Nursey said. “Be chill, brah.”

The names and faces slid though Dex’s brain after a while, as Nursey made his way around saying hi. Everyone seemed to know him, but no one held onto him. Dex felt a little lame, shadowing Nursey like a duckling, but not lame enough to stop.

Spence was the only one Nursey seemed really happy to see. He— _they_ , Dex reminded himself, _they_ had their blonde flow done up in two French braids and wore a skirt over their skinny jeans. Spence had the narrower waist and hips, but they were also as broad and tall as Nursey. They actually lifted Nursey off his feet when the two of them hugged, and Dex knew from his start-of-year fights with Nursey how heavy the sonofabitch was.

"Good to see you, brah," Nursey said. He'd only ever called Shitty "brah" at Samwell. Andover thing, probably. (Dex told himself these things to distract himself from Nursey's broad, bold, unchill grin.)

"Brah, you too," said Spence. Their eyes found Dex's. "This Dex?"

Dex had half a second to process that data—Nursey talked to his old d-man about Dex, and a lot? Probably?—before Nursey was saying, "Spence, Dex, Dex, Spence," and Dex was drawn into a hockey-bro embrace by the hand he'd extended to shake Spence's.

It hit Dex then, for no particular reason, that Nursey was a tactile guy. No wonder he and Spence were friends.

"Good looking out, dude," Spence said. "Does he still refuse to go over plays during practice?"

Dex rolled his eyes with his whole body, because here was somebody who got it. "Oh my fuck, _yes_. Whenever I try, he's all, _yo_ —”

" _Go with the flow_." He and Spence said it together, Spence grinning.

"Brah, I thought we worked past this," Spence said.

Nursey didn't blush like Dex did—his skin was too dark—but he had the decency to look sheepish. He still tried to pass it off with a careless shrug, but Dex and Spence shared a look at how transparent it was.

"Fuck y'all, I'm getting a drink."

" _Y'all_?" Spence asked, delighted. Nursey moved faster through the crowd. "Brah, did you just say _y'all_?" Nursey flipped them off and disappeared into the kitchen.

Even as he chuckled at Nursey, Dex felt the back of his neck prickle. He was alone in a crowd of rich kid New Yorkers, alone with the one of them who was important to Nursey, who was a them instead of a he or a she, and Dex could say the wrong thing at any moment without knowing it. Dex felt his face heat up. Nursey was supposed to have his back.

"Hey," Spence said. "You smoke, man?"

"No." He'd never spend money on shit that superfluous, or put his scholarships in jeopardy by getting caught with it.

Spence considered him. "You wanna start?" Dex shifted uneasily, reluctant to share the many and detailed reasons why _no thank you_ , the first being _I'm too poor_. "No pressure, dude, you just look like you could use some help relaxing."

Dex let out a long breath. "Yeah. Not really my scene." The furniture people were making out on, the rugs they were letting their ashes and drinks drip upon, the chandeliers already hung with bras and briefs—individually, they probably cost more than his family's house.

"The party isn't, or the rich yuppie-ness isn't?"

Spence was kind, Dex decided. Kinder than him or Nursey. "The uh, second one more than the first."

Spence nodded seriously. "Well the good news is that the real assholes are either high off their hermetically sealed asses, or they're still back in Boston."

"Spence!" The guy who called out was built, but a little shorter than Dex and Spence. His eyes were dark like Bitty's, but piercing instead of warm. He had a fresh beer and a big, dimpled smile for Spence. Dex glanced at Spence, who blushed very gracefully along his cheekbones, and prepared to be ignored.

"Hey Prez," said Spence. "Have you met Dex? He's Nursey's d-man at Samwell." Prez shook Dex's hand. "Dex, this Prez. He was our captain senior year. Winger."

"Nice to meet you, man," Prez said. "Zimmermann's team, right? You guys had a good run this year."

Dex wanted to curl his hands into fists at the thought of the championship game, but Prez didn't seem to mean anything by it. He shoved his hands into his pockets instead. "Thanks. Where do you play?"

"Eh, Mother was never a fan of the potential for injury,” Prez said. “I manage the team at Brown, though.”

Which meant that, when they’d played Brown months ago, Nursey had been playing against his old captain’s new team—and he’d never said a word.

"Quentin motherfucking Adams." Nursey appeared at Dex's elbow with three bottles of beer and handed one to Dex. The third one had clearly been meant for Spence, but Nursey hung onto it. Neither Nursey nor Prez moved for a hug. "How's Providence?"

Prez shrugged. "Pretty chill. Go Falconers."

Nursey nodded, expression pleasant, but Dex would have to be Holster or Ransom to miss the tension. Dex ran the data—Quentin Adams, nicknamed Prez, as in President? President John Adams, President John Quincy Adams, Quincy, Quentin...shit. Could be a coincidence, with the captainship, but. Andover. New England elite. Dex took a pull from his beer.

Spence thumped Prez in the chest. "Lighten up, dudes. Let's pong."

It wasn't all that different from a kegster, in its fundamentals. The atmosphere at Cush’s was smokier, lazier, probably from the abundance of weed. There wasn't tub juice, but there was a huge bowl of pinkish red punch in the kitchen with who-knew-what in it. Pockets of people were dancing, or playing quarters or flip cup. If Dex ignored that the mystery punch was in a crystal bowl instead of plastic, or that the pong table was an actual sturdy ping pong table instead of a folding table rigged with a net made of yarn and zip ties, he could convince himself that he was nearly as comfortable in Cush's house as in the Haus.

Whatever beef Nursey had with Prez, they were polite to each other. Spence was kind. They and Prez took their defeat at pong with the familiar good-natured profanity.

That's how Dex met Cush's cousins, Elliott and Schuyler (because that's what rich folks name their daughters, apparently), and Schuyler's girlfriend Madison. The twins were obviously fraternal, but they had the same strong nose and wavy hair. Elliott, the twin with silvery blonde hair, demanded a match with Nursey and Spence versus her and Schuyler, so Madi and Dex sort of sheepishly gravitated toward each other as two people who didn't know most of the partygoers.

Madi was tall, almost as tall as Dex, and wore librarian glasses. She said she met Schuyler at Smith College, which sounded like the all-girls version of Samwell. "That _one in four, maybe more_ thing? It's true for Smith too, it's just not advertised as much," Madi said.

They could tell by each other's accents that they were from the same class of people. Madi's dad was a construction worker in Boston, her mom a supermarket manager in Northampton; Dex's foster dad was a lobster fisherman, his foster mom a co-owner of a small quilting shop. They bonded over scholarships and dealing with oblivious rich kids. The pong game ended, and Nursey and Spence demanded a rematch. Dex felt it was okay to ask, "So, you know, no offense, but...how do you and Schuyler make it work? With such a big difference between the way you grew up?"

Madi didn't get mad, or offended, or even defensive. Her eyes flicked to Nursey, but she thought it over before she answered. "We had to have a few awkward conversations in the first month. One fight. But we talked seriously about money and expectations and stuff when we were still just friends. We've both had to adapt. But, like, the most helpful thing is that she doesn't make me explain myself? I tell her that I don't like something, or I don't want something, and she's just like, okay." She smiled at Schuyler dreamily. "When I'm really uncomfortable, she doesn't push."

Dex tried to visualize a world in which nobody pushed him, in which his words didn't come out of his mouth in jumbled heaps, in which nobody asked him to explain himself. A lot of people would have to disappear for that world to exist: Nursey, Shitty, Bitty, Chowder, Kat, Ransom and Holster. Jack and Lardo. All his friends on the hockey team, really. Samwell.

" _You'll certainly learn a lot_ ," Martha had said when he told her he'd accepted Samwell. " _And not just about computers._ "

She hadn't been wrong.

Madi asked, "Are you and Nursey...?"

"No. Just teammates." But that wasn't right. Ollie and Wicks were teammates. Nursey was something else. "Defensemen—partners."

Dex couldn't read Madi's expression, but it was too close to knowing for his comfort. "I only know him from Schuyler and Ell's stories,” she said.

"Any good ones?" Dex asked. "He doesn't talk about Andover much." Except to say how much he hated it, but Madi didn't need to know that.

"Well," Madi said, "when he and Elliott were together, he spilled something on her on every single date they went on."

Dex snorted. "Please. He once tripped and dropped a full bowl of cereal down my back."

"You're talking about me!" Nursey called.

"Yep," said Dex, meeting Nursey's eyes flatly and sipping unrepentantly from his beer.

"You looking for chirping material?" Elliott asked. She sank her ball. While Nursey drank, she said, "Speaking as the first girl he ever dated, I can give you deets."

"Speaking as the first person with a dick he ever dated," said Spence, " _I_ can give you deets."

"Dudes," said Nursey, "chill." Dex, who was dizzy with the new data about Nursey's dating history, said nothing.

The doorbell rang. Cush appeared out in the hall, cursing lazily about how "I'm fucking coming you goddamn cocksuckers." Then: "Crowns, my man!"

Nursey looked at Prez, threw an arm around Spence's shoulders, and said, "I'm not feeling the pong anymore, bros. Let's chill." Elliott and Schuyler immediately agreed. Spence allowed themself (theirself?) to be steered deeper into the house. Prez followed Spence, and Dex and Madi followed Prez.

They weaved back and back and back until they came to a back door, and then Elliott led them out of that. The back patio was small, barely existent, but free of smoke and people. It had a wicker couch (which the guys and Spence took) and a swinging bench (which the girls took). Dex was often shit at reading people, Nursey in particular, but he knew hardcore avoidance when he saw it.

"Not gonna say hi, Prez?" Nursey's question had a bite to it.

Prez just said, "Nope," and drank his beer.

For about half an hour, they sat and talked. Dex and Nursey turned out to be the only people who'd been to the touristy places in New York City, so the others had them describe the Statue of Liberty and the Empire State Building. Nursey pulled his usual unimpressed _chill_ shtick. Surprisingly, everyone but Dex and Spence seemed to buy it.

At one point, Dex said, "Don't expect me to treat you like an out-of-stater, Nurse," and the group experienced a small explosion. Dex shared a look with Madi, who grinned at him behind her beer.

Prez was the first one coherent enough to ask, "I'm sorry, outta what?"

"Out us tater?"

"Outta stay down."

"ATTAS dater.”

"Outta good puns," Nursey said. "That's like, the strongest I've heard your accent in months, brah."

While Dex was trying to think of a good comeback chirp, Madi said, "Can't take the Mainer out of the man, man." Dex toasted her.

"The fuck is this shit?" A guy holding a whiskey tumbler strode out onto the patio, as ginger as Dex and twice as muscular. Another guy leaned against the doorway ( _letting all the cool air out_ , Dex's brain sneered). The ginger guy held out a hand for Prez, who clasped it and accepted a lopsided bro-hug. "Prez, my man. Spence, my—whatever the fuck you are." He tried to ruffle Spence's braided hair, and only managed to shake Spence's head around. "Nurse, you fucking spaz. Heard you were here." Nursey just nodded, mouth full of beer. Ginger Guy's gaze fell on Dex. "Who the hell are you?"

"Dex, Crowns," Prez said. "Crowns, Dex. He's on the Samwell team with Nurse."

"Motherfucker," said Crowns. "A Paki and an Irishman, that's a hell of a defense. I didn't know you still played, Nurse. Good season?"

Nursey didn't seem inclined to talk, so Dex said, "Top two. Lost the championship."

"Shit, that had to sting," said Crowns.

Dex nodded. "Little bit, yeah." He had to wonder what this guy's game was. It wasn't fucking hockey, that was for sure. Nursey loved hockey, but competitiveness didn't get to him like it did most of the rest of the team.

(Nursey was the one who held Dex and Chowder together when they lost the title. He tugged them all into the same bed in their hotel room, leg over Dex's legs, arm stretched to hold Chowder. He made sure they had all their shit, that they ate and showered, that they took care of their gear, that they woke up on time for the bus. He switched between sitting next to Dex and sitting next to Chowder on the ride home, based on when they needed space and when they needed contact. He fucking tucked them in at their dorms. Dex could’ve done all that himself, of course, but it was nice not to have to be the responsible one for once.)

"That's Lego," said Crowns, jutting his chin at the guy in the doorway. "We were the leading enforcers in our high school league three years running."

"Nice," Dex said. Crowns didn't scan him, but Dex felt the sizing-up anyway. He didn't worry. No one ever expected Dex to act like an enforcer, which is what made him an effective one.

"Good to see you too, Crowns," Elliott said.

Crowns spun and said, "Shit on a stick. Who's this lovely lady?"

"Madison," Schuyler said. "She goes to Smith with me."

"Smith, huh?" Dex couldn't see Crowns' face, but he saw Elliott take Madi's other hand. Crowns took a drink from his (probably crystal) glass without moving his head. "I hear good things about Smith."

"Yeah," Madi said, eyes narrowed. "Its astrophysics depahtment's pretty fuckin' sweet." She rolled out her accent like the tide coming in, smooth but unforgiving.

“Right, but a fucking paradise if you’ve got a librarian kink, am I right?”

Dex felt Nursey tense next to him. “Are you trying to say something, Crowns?” he asked, voice as fucking chill as ever. “Is this a plea for a more interesting sex life? Do we need to like, game this out?”

“Unwad your panties, Nurse, I’m just saying what everyone’s thinking.”

“Yo, literally no one was thinking about the runs, which is what just came out of your mouth.”

Crowns scoffed. “Oooh, what, did I _trigger_ you, Nurse?” He rolled his eyes and drank form his glass.

Early in the pre-season practices, Dex had brushed Bitty, and Bitty had dropped to the ice and curled in on himself, shaking. It took a few weeks to get the full picture—Bitty had a checking phobia, Bitty got a bad hit last year, Bitty’s a small sweet baking figure skating kid from _Georgia_ —and then Hall and Murray made them watch the tapes. He saw the fucking dirty hit, saw how Bitty went flying. That was without the way Kat felt about crowded spaces, or the way Dex felt about hospitals. Dex knew what triggers were, how real they were, before he knew the name for them—but he was a guest. His face might flush, his fingers might clench, but you don’t fight in a stranger’s home if you can help it. So Dex didn’t, and felt sick to his stomach with the effort of staying seated.

“Your presence triggers major creeper vibes, _Ashley_ ,” Elliott said.

Crowns hurled his glass against the fence around the meager backyard. “I need a real goddamn drink. Prez, c’mon, let’s whip up some ‘tinis. Real James Bond shit.”

He loomed over them like a mean ginger grizzly until Prez sighed and stood. Crowns steered Prez ahead of him, and Lego shut the door quietly behind them. The atmosphere on the patio was too similar to when Uncle Pat’s ex won full custody of the kids and moved them to Vermont. Elliott held Madi's hand like the grip was keeping them both on the swing.

Schuyler produced a baggie of cookies. She passed half of one to Nursey and Spence. Dex stood. "Beer?"

"There should be a six-pack in the basement fridge," Elliott said.

"And vodka at the back of the corner cabinet in the kitchen," said Schuyler. She broke her half-cookie into thirds and passed them to Madi and Ell.

Dex went hunting. He grabbed a six-pack (of bottles, not cans) that had a label with similar words as the label on his empty: "Belgian," "pale ale," that kind of shit. The kitchen was a different story. Dex never went into the Haus kitchen during kegsters. He suspected Bitty would kill him. Slowly. Cush's kitchen was filled with who Dex guessed were Andover hockey bros. Prez was there, mouth pressed shut, eyes on his bottle. He might've been captain, but Crowns was at the center of attention.

“I’m not saying they shouldn’t still be in the city, I’m just saying I’m surprised they’re still there,” Crowns said.

“Chyeah,” a guy said. Other guys murmured assent. Dex looked for the vodka. None of them seemed to notice him except Prez.

“What do you wanna do, Crowns?” Prez asked. “Pack ‘em into camps like they did with Japanese Americans after Pearl Harbor?”

Dex’s shoulders prickled. Surely not.

“Fuck nah, man,” Crowns says. “We gotta pack all those towelheads off to their fuckin’ homeland, let them get shot up instead of our guys.”

Dex let the cabinet door bang closed. “You wanna say that to Nursey’s face? Or his mom’s?”

“What’s he gonna do? Write a fucking poem? Stage a sit-in? Cry to mommy about how fucking hard his life is?” Crowns drained his glass. “Only fucking reason he plays for Samwell is some affirmative action bullshit.”

 _You are a guest in this house_ , Dex told himself. _Don’t shit on the rug_.

“Crowns. Man,” Prez said, wearily rubbing his eyes. “Is your ass ever jealous of the shit that comes out of your mouth?”

“You’re just bitter it’s been weeks and you still haven’t nailed Nurse’s sloppy seconds.”

“Hey!”

“Are you actually looking for a fight?” Dex asked. He set down the six-pack. “Or do you just get off on being a raging asshole?”

Crowns sneered. “Are you actually white trash, or do you just smell like it?”

And seriously, _fuck that_.

It wasn’t a pretty fight. Crowns clearly didn’t expect Dex to stay standing after the first hit, but. Dex had been a foster kid with a school full of bullies and a grudge against the world for taking his parents away—and, occasionally, he got foster brothers who liked to roughhouse, or would teach him how to throw a punch. That was _before_ hockey. Crowns was bigger, but relied too much on his size and his mouth. Dex was big, but he hadn’t always been, and he still remembered how to let an opponent use their weight against them.

Crowns broke the coffee table by falling on it. He seemed too surprised to continue. Dex, very proud of himself for not knocking out any teeth, grabbed the booze he’d come for and headed back to the porch. Prez followed him.

Nursey knew what happened as soon as he saw Dex. Dex shrugged unrepentantly and handed the beers around. Madi knocked her bottle against his; Spence planted a sloppy kiss on Dex’s cheek.

“Don’t encourage him,” Nursey snapped—actually _snapped_.

Dex couldn’t resist. “Dude, chill.”

“Cush isn’t gonna chill,” Nursey said. “Cush is gonna kick us the fuck out as soon as he finds out.”

“Then sit back and enjoy your fucking Belgian, dingus,” said Spence. They slung their legs over Nursey’s lap, as if to keep Nursey in place. After a beat, Dex did the same.

Nursey smiled in spite of himself, stupidly pleased at any sign of Dex’s emotional range beyond anger, irritation, and “party-pooping”. Dex very determinedly did not meet Nursey’s eyes, but he felt his skin flush. He kicked Nursey in the gut to make up for it.

 

“I used to pull that kind of shit,” Nursey said, walking back to the brownstone after Cush asked them to leave. “You know what happened?”

Dex grunted.

“Three day suspension, plus team probation. Said I was conducting myself in a dangerously disruptive manner. Implied I wouldn’t be fighting if my father was around, or Ammi worked less. Mama talked them down from a two-week suspension. The other guy got one detention.”

As far as Dex knows, Nursey’s never even been tempted to start a fight, not even on the ice, when the team has to hold back Dex and Holster and other guys when things go sideways. “What’d he do?”

Nursey’s steps didn’t falter. “He said the only reason anyone would marry my dyke mother was for the green card.”

Dex pulled Nursey into his side, roughly, with his arm around Nursey’s neck. Nursey had a lot of things Dex didn’t—money, luxury, living parents—but Dex knew now what he hadn’t at the beginning of the school year: Nursey was rich, but he was also brown. Dex was poor, but he was also white. Shit was weird like that.

“The chill thing was on purpose, at first,” Nursey said. “So that wouldn’t happen again. Eventually, it stopped being an effort and was just…me.” He shrugged.

The brownstone was in sight. Nursey was still under Dex’s arm. Hadn’t even tried to move away.

“I can’t watch Disney movies where a parent dies,” Dex said. “Bambi, Lion King. Even fucking Dumbo. I cry. Like, an embarrassing amount.”

Nursey slung his arm around Dex’s waist, gentle and heavy.

There wasn’t really anything you could say to these kind of late-night admissions. Spend enough time around someone, and shit like this was bound to surface.

-

Nursey’s dad came over for dinner on Friday. It seemed to be a routine—Azima and Lupe made references to a show called Gilmore Girls that Dex thought Martha and Kat and Libby liked, but the phrase “Friday Night Dinner” got thrown around a lot, with the capital letters implied.

Nursey’s dad’s name was Richard, but Dex knew as they shook hands that Dex would never call him that. Mr. Nurse was an insurance agent, and he was where Nursey got his curls and the color of his eyes.

It was an oddly formal dinner. Mr. Nurse asked Dex all the normal questions. What’s your major, where are you from, how did you meet Derek. That last one threw Dex for a bit of a loop, until he realized Mr. Nurse knew next to nothing about hockey. He didn’t get the significance of Dex being Nursey’s d-man partner. He didn’t seem to want to learn. “Very risky sport, hockey,” he said. “Good thing it’s less violent at the college level.” Nursey kept his eyes on his plate and ate methodically.

Mr. Nurse wanted to know if Nursey still intended to pursue a degree in English. Nursey’s terse, “It is,” clued Dex in that this was an old…discussion? It wasn’t an argument. Dex had had those with Nursey before. Mr. Nurse talked about how an English degree was a good foundation for a postgraduate degree in something useful, like law. Mr. Nurse said professors didn’t earn much, but there was plenty of upward mobility available in academia if you published the right research. Dex was so surprised that Nursey wasn’t rising to the bait, he almost didn’t have his bro’s back.

“Actually, sir, I read an article recently about how businesses are beginning to actively seek out humanities majors, because they’re taught creativity and communication, whereas sciences and business majors are more often lacking those skills.”

Shitty had shown him that article during one of their debates (the importance of STEM versus the humanities, that time). Mr. Nurse blinked, hummed, and let Azima change the subject. Nursey’s foot tapped Dex’s under the table. Lupe winked.

After Mr. Nurse left, Dex and Nursey walked around Central Park with Pablo, watching the sunset.

“You’re not gonna ask?” Nursey said.

“Ask what?”

“I’m a quarter black, a quarter Cherokee, and half Pakistani, raised by a Muslim and a Mexican Catholic in a same-sex relationship. I’m Simba but like, liger Simba, and Timon and Pumbaa are female.”

Dex punched Nursey’s shoulder. “Think you’re overrating yourself, dude.”

They walked on, mostly quiet, until Nursey said, “It’s weird though. Ammi travels a lot for work, and Dad’s never been around, so most of the time it was just Mama and me. We’d make enchiladas from scratch and watch cartoons on the Spanish channels. We’d spend Dia de Los Muertos and Cinco de Mayo with her family in the Heights. Most of what I know about my _actual_ heritage, I read in books.”

Dex thought of the incompatibility of seawater and computers, barnacles and motherboards, and pulled Nursey into a headlock to distract himself from the ache in his chest. “You’re such a fucking poet.”

-

Dex went to see Hamilton mainly because he didn’t think he could get out of it without being rude. And, honestly, it was kinda nice to be surrounded by people who were excited about something other than sports and alcohol. Dex’s theatergoing experience was limited to his foster siblings’ and cousins’ school plays—so maybe he was excited to experience something new.

Three hours after entering the theater, Dex exited the front doors with Nursey, Azima, and Lupe. His eyes were pink from crying, and his hands stung from clapping, and his throat felt full.

Lupe steered them toward a froyo place while she, Nursey, and Azima discussed the show. Dex listened, but didn’t trust himself to speak.

_Life doesn’t discriminate between the sinners and the saints, it takes and it takes and it takes._

_I am not throwing away my shot._

_The world has no right to my heart._

_You want a revolution—I want a revelation._

_In New York you can be a new man._

He served himself cinnamon and espresso froyo and topped it with Rice Krispies. He sat down with Nursey and his moms.

“So,” Nursey said. “What’d you think, Dex?”

Dex raised his eyes from his froyo, met Nursey’s stupid green eyes, and vehemently said, “Eliza deserved better.” It made Nursey smile softly. Lupe clapped him on the back.

 

**II.**

Nursey goes over what he knows about Dex’s family on the way to JFK: parents Ed and Martha, brother Robert (“Robbie”, twenty-two), sister Katherine (“Kat”, seventeen), and sister Abigail (“Libby”, fourteen). Kat was the only one related to Dex by blood.

“That’s the basics, yeah,” Dex says when Nursey asks, killing time in the security line. He’s got his ID and boarding pass clutched in his hand and this determined look on his face, like he’ll be damned if they have any excuse to not let him through to the plane. Talking about his family, Nursey has learned, relaxes him. “You’ll meet all the aunts and uncles, but honestly, the only two you need to remember are Les and Mark.”

“They Martha’s side or Ed’s?”

“Ed’s.” The line moves, and they turn a corner around a plastic post. “The cousins will be around a lot, but most of them are thirteen and younger, so they’re pretty forgiving.”

Security is a bitch and a half— _JFK_ is a bitch and a half—but Dex relaxes a few more notches when they’re on the other side with an hour still between them and boarding. Nursey relaxes too, but he doesn’t expect Dex to notice.

“Do they stop your mom a lot, when she flies?” Dex asks. They’re in the middle of putting their shoes back on. Dex is wearing slip-ons, like the prepared bastard he is, so he’s done first.

“Chyeah,” Nursey says. “I didn’t get the whole picture at the time, but. 9-11 fucked her up. They still detain her, sometimes, and me and Mama if we travel with her.”

Dex frowns and nods. “I should tell you—we don’t talk about that shit as openly as you guys. It’s like a peacekeeping thing. So many people in one place means a lotta different opinions.” Nursey stands, and Dex fidgets with the strap of his carry-on. “I mean, the shit your mom puts up with is wicked gross, and I’m sorry in advance for anything my family says, but,” Dex winces, “chill?”

And sure, that rankles, but not as much as it would’ve when they first met, when Dex was leery-eyed about private schools and obviously discomfited by Bitty. Nursey had assumed things that turned out to be untrue. His bad. And he’d long since figured that Dex’s ignorance on the finer points of sexuality and gender and, yeah, _race_ was shaped by lack of exposure in his home environment. No big. Nursey wasn’t gonna walk into his bro’s house and piss on the carpet.

He claps Dex on the shoulder. “No worries, man. I’ll be on my best behavior.”

Dex still looks worried—about his first plane ride or Nursey meeting his fam, Nursey couldn’t tell—so Nursey prods him into making up limericks to help Nursey remember all the names of the Poindexter cousins.

-

“Hey. Remember when you told me about your moms?” Dex asks, his blooming accent smoothing his – _er_ s into – _ah_ s.

“Yeah,” Nursey says. The bottom half of Dex’s face is lit by the sunlight coming through the plane window, sparking off the sea below.

“When we lost our parents, Kat lost some of her leg. She wears a prosthetic. I’m telling you so you won’t be weird about it.”

Things Nursey knows about Kat: she’s seventeen, a track star, an art therapy volunteer, a retail worker. And, apparently, an amputee.

“Chill,” he says, because he’s not a nice person and Dex is comfortable with exasperation. “What are her events again?”

Dex rolls his eyes, but not in a truly offended way. “One hundred meter, two hundred mete, pole vault.”

“’Swawesome.”

-

The woman who meets them at baggage claim is dark haired, stout, and tired-looking. She has a wide smile and open arms for Dex. Dex hugs her and calls her “Ma.” She has a rib-crushing hug for Nursey, too.

“You can call me Martha, Mrs. Allen, Mrs. A, whatever you like,” she says.

Mrs. _Allen_ —not Poindexter. Nursey is confused, but says, “Thanks, Mrs. A,” with as much social grace as he can.

He waits until Mrs. Allen leaves them to wait for the bags, while she gets the car, to ask, “So are you still a foster or?”

“What? No!” Dex snaps. “We’re all adopted.”

“But your name’s Poindexter.”

Dex stares at the luggage belt with a frown. “Kat and I kept our surname,” he says. “They were our _parents_.”

“’Scool, dude,” Nursey says. Ammi had kept Nurse as a surname for several reasons, the fact that it was Nursey’s name being just one of them. “Names are powerful.”

Normally, Dex would chirp him for a line like that, but now he just hugs himself. His frown softens from angry to thoughtful. “Yeah.”

-

Dex’s house defies adjectives. It’s two stories, but Nursey can’t call it big, or small. It’s not sad, but it’s not bright. It’s not what Nursey expected—not that Nursey even knows what he expected.

It’s yellow, with white trim, weather-beaten. The yard isn’t like, jewel-tone green, but it’s tidy—makes the Haus lawn look like a trash heap. There’s a bucket on the porch, placed strangely enough that it has to be catching a leak; but there are no stray grasses around the front steps or in the concrete creases of the front walk. There’s a pick-up in the driveway. Mrs. Allen pulls into the empty spot on its right.

As Nursey’s hefting his SMH duffel, he hears a screen door bang open. Mrs. Allen’s “Katherine!” is largely drowned out by a gleeful cry of, “Willieeee!”

A streak of red hair and pale limbs leaps off the porch and slams into Dex—literally, slams him into Mrs. Allen’s hatchback so hard that Nursey hears Dex lose his breath.

“Hey Kat,” Dex wheezes, adjusting his grip on her. He sounds _happy_.

“Hi Willie,” Kat says. She sounds more cheerful than Nursey has ever heard a teenager be. Her hair is as red as Dex’s, and she’s just as pale and muscular. She wears denim cut-offs, and her right shin is made of dark, thin—metal? Fiberglass? Nursey doesn’t know what prosthetics are made of.

“Oh hey,” Kat says, and she releases Dex. She’s looking at Nursey. She has dark eyes. “You must be Nursey.” He’s got at least three inches on her, but he doesn’t feel it.

Nursey smiles and sticks out his hand. “Yo,” he says. “Nice to meet you.”

“Yo?” Kat shakes his hand, but there’s a sharpness to her expression that’s pure Poindexter. “Are you serious?”

“Told you,” Dex mutters.

“You can tease each other inside as well as outside,” Mrs. Allen says.

The inside of the house is, essentially, the same as the outside: worn down, but clean and cared for. Cozy. There are like, granny square afghans.

“Will can give you the tour,” Mrs. Allen says, “but go ahead and put your stuff down. We’ve still got two beds in your room, hon, so there’s room for both of you.”

“I thought Libby was campaigning for my room,” Dex says.

“She can campaign all she wants,” says Mrs. Allen, “but she has to get her grades up first.”

Nursey gets the feeling Dex would like to catch up more, but Kat forces them up the stairs with two hands on Nursey’s back, pushing Dex upward by pushing Nursey.

Dex’s room is…charming. It’s big enough for two twin beds, their frames dinged up and old-fashioned. Dex dumps his bag on the one farther from the only window—the one with the red-and-black quilt—so Nursey takes the other one. Its quilt has a really rad starburst pattern.

“Where’d you find this?” he asks, because Mama would dig one.

“The linen closet?” says Kat, who’s leaning against the door, her eyebrow raised the same way Dex’s is when he’s all, _yeah I know what’s wrong with Betsy it’s not that big a deal_.

“Ma likes to quilt,” Dex says, unpacking in favor of not looking at Nursey. “It’s a good way to reuse old clothes.”

“Soothing, too,” Kat says, something challenging in the tilt of her chin.

Nursey runs his fingers over the meticulous edges of the starburst. “’Swawesome,” he says, more genuine than he usually is when using the word. There’s something in his chest he doesn’t have words for yet.

-

Nursey meets Mr. Allen, Robbie, and Libby at dinner. Ed Allen is blond, built like an old-school enforcer, with the old-school gruffness to match. He’s polite, though. When Nursey says he’s an English major, Ed asks what he wants to do with it in a way that makes Nursey want to answer honestly, seriously, not in response to a challenge because there wasn’t one.

“I’ve been thinking about joining a small publishing press, maybe teach.” He hasn’t said these things to his parents, not even Mama. They’d make a big deal out of it. Ed just hums to show he’s interested.

“Noble work, teaching,” he says, and that’s all.

Robbie is the smallest man in the house at five-ten, and seems to have a chip on his shoulder about it. Or—Nursey stops himself. He’s never been anywhere near the foster system. He doesn’t know. There’s an edge to Robbie though, a different kind than Dex and Kat have. He’s going for his contractor’s license. Which—hang on.

“Wait,” Nursey says. “So you guys, like, built an addition to the house? By yourselves?”

“Sure,” Ed says, like it’s no big deal. “Not a bad job, either.”

 _Not a bad job_. Nursey hadn’t even known that the master suite on the first floor wasn’t originally part of the house. “But. I thought Dex said you were fishermen.”

“Sure,” Ed says again. “But it’s good to have a back-up.”

“Fishing can be risky,” Robbie says. “And there are seasons, right, like crops. Outta-staters come up in the summer, so there’s a lot of demand, and it’s easier work. In winter, the lobsters move farther offshore, so the boats gotta go farther, and the weather’s not always gonna cooperate. So—”

“It’s good to have a back-up,” the family choruses. It feels like a motto.

Libby is fourteen, petite, and doesn’t talk much except to ask permission to see friends the next day. She gets it, on the condition she honors her hours at the quilt shop. Nursey smiles at her, once, and her grey eyes get huge like she’s done something wrong.

-

Then, Nursey meets The Uncles: Les, Ed’s big bro, and Mark. Who is Les’ like, butch gay lover.

Dex has two gay uncles, and it blows Nursey’s mind. He knows people condense their family histories at college—hell, he sure had—but he’d been thinking of fished-for-my-hockey-equipment uncle and we-would’ve-scrapped-Betsy-at-the-shop uncle as the same Super Uncle, or brothers. Not husbands.

“I don’t know if they’re married, actually,” Dex says, a little shamefaced. “But they’ve been together since before Robbie. We, uh, don’t talk about it much.”

The thing is though, Nursey gets the feeling that Dex would _like_ to talk about it. Dex stands or sits closer to his uncles than Robbie or Ed. One night they’re all talking about tax-funded college. Kat and Libby are out with friends. Martha is clinking around in the kitchen. Robbie says, “Oh, why don’t you go help Ma in the kitchen, since you’re so good at _baking_ now.”

Dex’s ears flush fast and hard, but he can’t get a word out. Before Nursey can, Les says, “One day he’s gonna bake a steaming pile of shit into a chocolate pie, and I’m gonna let you eat it.”

Les is the lobster-fishing uncle. Ed and Mark, the appliance repair uncle, guffaw. Robbie sulks into his beer. Nursey offers Les a fist to bump. “’Swawesome chirp, man.” Les looks quizzical, but bumps Nursey’s fist.

-

Three times while Nursey’s there, Les takes him and Dex out on the boat “to earn their keep.” Nursey learns about hens and chickens and pistols and shedders, why shorts are bad, why bands are good. Nursey decides lobsters are creepy little fuckers, and gets chirped by Dex and Les when he says so, but they report proudly that they’ll make a fisherman out of him yet.

Nursey likes it out on the water. It’s calm and quiet, the work new and challenging enough to up his adrenaline. He gets to see Dex in his element, and he gets to ask Les questions away from the rest of the family.

“How long you and Mark been together?” Nursey asks. Dex stiffens.

“Twenty-three years in September,” Les says easily.

“Shit, dude,” says Nursey, delighted. “When you gonna put a ring on that?”

“We went to the courthouse two years ago,” says Les. “They voted it legal up here just before 2013 rolled in. Mark and me don’t really go in for rings, what with our work.”

“You went to the courthouse?” Dex asks. He looks sad. Nursey studies his sandwich.

“Thought of asking you to witness,” Les says, “but we didn’t want to put you in an awkward spot.”

-

In between the days on the boat, Dex and Nursey spend at least two hours a day at Mark’s shop. Nursey isn’t good for much besides passing tools; when Mark finds out Nursey doesn’t even know the difference between a flathead and Phillip’s head screwdriver, he gives Nursey a crash course on all the gizmos in his toolbox.

Mark is tanned and dark-haired, with a lumberjack beard and biceps that would make Holster jealous. His hands are scarred and calloused, but steady as a surgeon’s with the delicate innards of toasters and radios.

“How’d you meet Les?” Nursey asks.

“Beach barbecue on Cape Elizabeth,” says Mark. “He gave me shit about my tattoos.”

Dex is in the room—Nursey made sure he was. “What’d you say?” Nursey asks.

“That he was too scrawny to be criticizing other people’s looks. Then we got talking about hockey, then beer, then how we liked working with our hands.” Mark smiles, half-fond, half-smug. “I had his number by the end of the night. And that was that.”

Nursey feels a goddamn poem coming on. Dex asks, “You’re from New Hampshire, right? Why’d you move up here?”

“Les’ family was more understanding than mine. Still is.”

“Seriously?” Nursey’s never heard Dex sound more incredulous, and that says a lot.

Mark puts his tools aside and looks Dex in the eye. “Your dad loves his brother. He might never understand what Les and I have, but he respects it. Your ma doesn’t like tension in the family, but she’s one of the kindest folk I ever met. Granddad’s a piece of work sometimes—so is Robbie, come to that—but when trouble comes knocking, they’d have our backs, and we’d have theirs.” Mark quirks a smile. “You know how Allens are about family.”

-

Libby’s the only one with hair redder than Dex’s, and they’re not even related. Nursey doesn’t see much of her, because she’s fourteen and on summer break and sick of her siblings. Kat is (impossibly) more freckled than Dex, and keeps to herself when she’s not trying her best to embarrass the hell outta him. All the Allens are busy—fishing, working, volunteering, babysitting, doing chores, repairing things. Dex seems kind of embarrassed when they’re cleaning the gutters, but he never once backs down from helping out.

For Nursey, it’s an adventure. A lot of work, but new work. It’s a challenge, and Nursey never really appreciated how much he liked being challenged before Dex.

They chill sometimes. They run with Kat every morning, and she lets them set the pace until the last stretch, when she destroys them in a sprint. Dex takes him to a nearby pier for regular pole fishing, which Nursey really digs. It’s mad chill. Just them and the water, and the fish taking their sweet time about biting.

-

Nursey doesn’t meet Martha’s side of the family until the cookout they host on Nursey’s last day—which is also the first (and only) time Nursey meets Granddad.

Granddad is Les and Ed’s dad. He’s a wrinkly mofo with wispy red hair, almost pink with the white in it, and blond stubble. His eyes are as blue as Jack’s, but way less friendly.

“How much trouble would you be in if I sassed Granddad?” Nursey asks.

Dex grabs him by the shirt and yanks him close. “Do not. Even. Joke about that.”

Nursey doesn’t know if Granddad’s under some sort of There Are Guests Here So Behave code of silence, but he doesn’t say a word to Nursey all night. He barely talks at all. Nursey’s kinda bummed not to have a chance to hear what the old dude has to say, but knows it’s probably for the best.

But Nursey is quickly grateful that Dex gave him permission ahead of time to not remember everybody, because. Like. Martha has four siblings, who are married, with three or four kids each. The oldest cousins are around Kat and Libby’s age, and the youngest is six months old. There are fourteen of them. It’s a madhouse.

It’s even more of a madhouse when they find out Nursey is as strong as Dex, and therefore as able to haul them around like dolls. One of them asks him how strong he is. Dex says, “Don’t fall for it.”

Nursey doesn’t know what he means until he’s got four rugrats on his back and two more sitting on his feet, urging him to keep going. Nursey escapes by gently falling to his knees, then onto his face. Once he’s immobile, the kids lose interest in him. He almost thinks he’ll leave him alone.

“Is he okay?” one of them asks. Probably eleven-year-old Charles, who is the oldest of four and takes it very seriously.

Tiny, sweaty hands push at Nursey, poke at his back and ribs. He’s lying down, so it’s chill. They’re kinda sweet. Eventually, with much coordination and effort, they manage to roll Nursey onto his back and poke him in the face. Thankfully, due to Dex being _Dex_ all the time, Nursey is immune to poking. His zen is undisturbed. What he doesn’t expect is for one of the little ones—like, four or five or six years old little—to climb onto his chest and hunker over like a baby in a crib.

“What are you doing, Nora?”

“He’s comfy,” says the child loaf on his chest.

One of the others says “nuh- _uh_!” They proceed to test out Nursey’s comfiness by using him as a pillow. The older ones, who still have some energy, wander off after their curiosity is satisfied. When they’re gone, Nursey still has four lumps curled up on him. He opens his eyes.

Dex stands over him, amused and incredulous. “Of course.”

Nursey doesn’t know if Dex is talking about his looks, or his chill, or whatever charm Nursey’s supposed to have, but he knows this script. “You jelly, brah?”

Dex snorted. “I warned you.”

And, yeah, fair. Nursey feels like he just did a round of weight training. But honestly, it was fun. He likes these kids, their loud, simple joy. The part he could play in pulling it out of them. He shrugs. “It’s chill.”

-

As the party’s winding down, Martha says, “Will, you should show Derek the breakwater.”

The breakwater is a granite pier that extends almost a mile into the Atlantic. It looks like the old quays in the UK. The granite blocks look like they’re coming apart in some spots, like cobblestones lifted from beneath by tree roots, but Dex says, “Don’t be a wimp,” which means it’s safe.

It looks like there’s a little white house at the end of the breakwater—Dex says it’s a lighthouse, and when they get close Nursey can see the cylindrical light in its brick tower.

“Still in use,” Dex says proudly. “It’s automated now, and the house is a museum for Coast Guard stuff.”

It’s a little colder a mile to the ocean than on the shore, but Dex looks relaxed. “There were a bunch of big storms in the 1850s, practically flattened the town,” he says. “They finished the breakwater in 1899, to protect the town, and they stuck the light out here in 1902.” Dex smirks. “It almost got demolished in the seventies, but the town wouldn’t let it happen.”

Nursey doesn’t know when he realized Dex wasn’t uptight, he just didn’t know how not to care. It was moments like this that made it hard to forget. “I thought Jack was a history nerd,” Nursey says, because Dex needs someone to remind him to not take himself so seriously.

Dex kicks at Nursey’s legs, but it swings wide—it’s more about the principle of the thing. (Allah/God help him, Nursey finds it endearing.) “It’s my town,” Dex says. It sounds like an explanation.

“You gonna come back after graduation?” Nursey asks.

Dex leans against the red brick of the lighthouse. “I don’t know,” he says. It’s heavy. Nursey leans next to him. A few other evening walkers mill around, in their own worlds. The Atlantic Ocean stretches out to the horizon, empty and endless from where they stand.

“Ed and Martha worked their asses off to give me the opportunity for a life that doesn’t involve food stamps,” Dex says. “They took care of Kat, gave us a home again. I like coding, but I’m proud of what I can do with just my hands—fishing, fixing things. Robbie and Granddad think I should stay in Rockland, like Les and Mark’s heir or something.”

“You’ve got time, man,” Nursey says. “You’re never gonna make everyone happy.”

Dex’s shoulders slump. The sky starts to grow gold behind them.

And—Nursey didn’t think he would ever understand Dex as well as he does right now. Nursey’s dad is paying half of Samwell’s bills. Nursey’s dad is an insurance agent, a calculator of risk. And Nursey just wants to write. But—his gut turns over—he doesn’t want to depend on his moms forever. Not after everything they’ve given him. Not after seeing how hard Dex works, and why, and where he gets it from.

Nursey knows that you owe something to your family, even if they don’t agree that you do. You owe something to the people who love and shape you.

Nursey puts his hand in Dex’s hair and shakes Dex’s head, gently. He got the gesture from Ammi, when he used to think himself in circles as a kid. Touch for affection, a gentle shake for “stop it.” Nursey does it instinctively. The first time he did it to Dex, Dex swatted Nursey away and snarled. Today, in the face of the flat blue horizon and the softly creeping dark, Dex huffs and smiles.

“I don’t think I’ll go back to New York,” Nursey offers. “After graduation. Not to stay.”

Dex looks shocked, and not in an angry way, which is refreshing. “What? Really? Why?”

The breeze off the water is cool on Nursey’s skin. He’s never felt so big and so small, standing between Dex and the ocean. “Because my favorite part of the city is Central Park,” Nursey says. “I wanna see the fuckin’ stars every night. And there’s no room for backyard beer-becues.”

Dex shakes his head. “Transcendentalist nerd.”

The phrase, and the fondness with which Dex says it, sends a jolt of euphoria from Nursey’s scalp to his toes. As if possessed, he plants a smacking kiss on Dex’s cheek, says, “Big kiss for a big word!” and takes off down the breakwater at top speed.

He hears Dex laughing and yelling behind him. He leaps over large cracks in the granite, he dodges around the other walkers. He knows Dex is chasing him. It’s like a poem—high summer, two boys running, two friends running, the sunset, a mile-long aisle in the sea.

Nursey gets to shore first and walks backward to watch Dex catch up—he’s just as fast as Nursey, but more cautious.

Three steps, and Nursey trips over nothing and falls flat on his back in the sand. Nursey stares at the sky and accepts his fate. Dex is laughing nearby. Soon he’s standing over Nursey, with a look of wonder on his gorgeous freckled face.

“This is the kinda footwork we need to see in the upcoming season, Nurse.”

Nursey sighs deeply and raises both of his arms. Dex grabs his forearms and hauls Nursey to his feet. “I’m covered in sand, aren’t I.”

Dex peeks around Nursey’s shoulder, and grins. “Yep.” Without asking—seriously, Nursey’s already taking off his snapback to beat as much sand off his jeans as possible—Dex sweeps his hand down Nursey’s spine. Nursey hears the sand rasp against Dex’s rough skin. Everywhere Dex touches goes tingly.

-

At night, with the window open, moonlight spilling across both their quilts, Nursey says, “Hey Dex.”

“What,” Dex says. He’s lying on his side, back to Nursey, but he doesn’t sound tired.

“Are you straight?”

Nursey hears Dex moving. He looks over. Dex has rolled onto his back. He’s staring at the ceiling. “I…don’t think so?” Dex says, voice quiet. “I. I’ve never felt attracted to someone without being their friend first, so I have a smaller than usual sample size to observe, but.” He sighs. “Figuring it out has never really been a priority, compared to…”

Losing his parents, moving around the foster system, taking care of Kat, working, hockey, helping out his family…Nursey says, “Chyeah, man, I get it. You ever hear Shitty talk about demisexuality?”

“I mean, not to me—but yeah. It fits.”

“Cool.” Dex, who put a Samwell Republican sticker on his laptop ten months ago, who had painfully stereotypical ideas about being gay when they met on the taddie tour, who had butted heads with Nursey for the greater part of fall semester, who had extraordinary skills and a desperate drive to work hard and prove his usefulness—that Dex had just come out to Nursey as something other than the hetero, allosexual default. “Thanks for trusting me with this moment, dude.”

“Shut up, you totally just stole Shitty’s line.”

Nursey can’t help but smile. “Are you cool with that label though? You don’t need to use it if it doesn’t jive with how you like, think of yourself.”

“It’s good for now,” Dex says, after taking a moment. “But don’t make a big deal out of it? I’m not gonna keep it a secret, but I don’t need a parade.”

“Too bad you’ll miss NY Pride,” Nursey says, mostly daydreaming aloud. “It’s everybody’s parade, so you wouldn’t feel singled out.” Dex grunts—he’s listening, but doesn’t have anything to say. So Nursey says, “You know I’m not straight either?”

“I mean,” Dex says, “don’t jump down my throat, but I’m not surprised. You’ve always been really comfortable saying what you like. Who you like. And Spence said—”

So he’d picked up on that. Sweet. “Chyeah. I’m pansexual. That's like, attraction to multiple genders. Male, female, enby like Spence, genderfluid, whatever.”

“Do you still like Spence?” Dex asks.

“Just as a bro,” Nursey says, because it’s true. Back at Andover, he and Spence were all each other had. Not in a literal ride-or-die way, and Spence would always be important to him—and, like, Spence is a beautiful person, inside and out, but there was no attraction between them anymore. Well. Enough to make out at a kegster if all parties were consenting, maybe, but nothing beyond that. “We’re better as friends.”

“Is—” Dex pauses, seems to debate with himself about going through with the question. “Is there anyone you do like? At Samwell, or someone from home…?”

“No one from home,” Nursey says, because fuck no. Been there, done that, once was enough. “At Samwell…”

At Samwell, there was Dex. Infuriating, challenging, hard-working, funny, passionate, talented Dex. Nursey turned his head to look at him, all red and gold even in the moonlight. He hadn’t written poems about Dex, not since they’d become friends for real, but he knew that he’d try.

Lying there, in Dex’s bedroom, in Maine, Nursey realized that Dex was beautiful. Not the kind of beautiful that most people could see at first glance, Nursey included—but fuck those people, and past-Nursey too. Dex was gorgeous. There was strength in every fiber of him, from his eyes to his shoulders to his calves. His skin was vulnerable, expressive. His eyes were literally amber—Nursey had gotten close enough, once, to see that they were yellow-green shot through with light brown. Nursey had never seen eyes like Dex’s before. Or ears like Dex’s, or a nose like Dex’s. An image of playoff-hair Dex came into Nursey’s head, scruffy, rumpled. Sexy as hell.

“At Samwell?” Dex asks.

Fuck.

“There might be someone,” Nursey says, careful not to break eye contact. “I’m not sure yet.”

Dex snorts. “As soon as you’re sure about them, they’ll be sure about you.”

“What makes you say that?”

“I don’t know if you’ve noticed, Nurse,” Dex says dryly, “but you have a way with people.”

A whole new anxiety crops up in Nursey’s head—he grips it tight. “Does that mean your fam likes me?”

“Were you not there when my cousins mobbed you?” Dex asks, sarcastic. “You’re shockingly easy to like, when you make the effort.”

Nursey considers throwing his pillow at Dex, but then he wouldn’t have a pillow, so he settles for, “Chill, bro.” Dex throws his pillow at Nursey, and Nursey throws it back, giggling.

-

Nursey’s been on a lot of planes. He’s said goodbye at airports, or to people going to airports, more times than he can count. He’s never wanted to get on a plane or say goodbye less than this moment.

He’s all packed up, his duffel waiting at the front door. Ed’s already at work, and so is Robbie, so it’s just the ladies of the house and Dex and him. He hugs Martha and thanks her. She says he’s welcome any time he can make the trip. Libby’s still shy around him, so he just waves.

Kat walks out with him and Dex. “You got his back?” she asks. Dex rolls his eyes and walks ahead. Kat stares at Nursey, her eyes shrewd.

“Yes,” Nursey says. “That’s what we do.”

“Don’t go easy on him,” Kat says, “but…”

“Go easy on him,” Nursey finishes. He gets it. Dex needs to be pushed, but not hurt. Never hurt. There’s been too much of that already.

Kat nods. She surprises Nursey with a hug. “Now beat it, I need to embarrass him some more.”

Nursey grins, tosses his duffel into the hatchback, and slips into the car. Dex and Kat talk for a minute, and then they’re off.

-

They don’t talk much on the way to the airport. Nursey asks a few questions about how the foster system handled Kat’s leg (Once he thought about it he couldn’t stop.) that leads to a place where Dex just starts talking.

“It was a car crash,” he says, and he sounds like Nursey had felt when he was waiting for Dex to ask _what are you_. “I was nine, Kat was seven. Drunk driver in a Porsche. Our parents died at the scene. Kat’s leg was crushed. I was mostly fine. They tried to find someone who had the access and money to take care of Kat, but that’s a short list in Maine. Lots of appointments, lots of bills. They sent us to Ma and Dad when I was fourteen, I think? Kat was twelve. They’d already adopted Robbie. Ma used to be an RN, so she knew what to do with Kat, she knew where to go and who to talk to. Money was tight, it was always tight, but they were different.”

Nursey waits, to make sure Dex is done. Then he asks, “The system never tried to split you up? You and Kat?”

Dex’s face goes cold-angry. “I wouldn’t let them.” Then, after another moment, the anger softens, turns inward a bit. Dex sags. “I was a difficult kid. I think they kept us together because they knew if we got separated, I would get even more hard to handle.”

Nursey had another question: _Were you ever afraid someone would adopt Kat and not you?_ But he didn’t need to ask it. He knew the answer. He also knew Dex was in a weird, sad headspace right now, and that shit wasn’t acceptable. Nursey nudged Dex’s arm. “What do I say, man.”

Dex shakes his head. “I dunno. Tell me again why you’d rather find a fucking person in the attic.”

That, Nursey can do. The squabbling seems to cheer Dex up pretty well. When he pulls over in the Departures lane at the airport, Nursey makes him get out for a hug. Dex moans and groans, but he does it. Nursey holds him tighter and longer than a standard bro-hug, but Dex’s grip matches his.

“Be safe, moron,” Dex says as they separate.

“You’re always free to Skype me,” says Nursey. He really hopes Dex will.

**Author's Note:**

> I tried really hard to get this right, but I am neither a POC, nor a foster kid (past or present), nor someone who's lived near or below the poverty line--so please, tell me if I got something wrong, and I'll do my best to fix it. Thanks for reading!
> 
> Edit (3/3/17): Minor changes; Nursey calls Azima "Ammi," Nursey's definition of his pansexuality is simpler (hopefully less problematic?), more Pablo, sentence-level stuff. Feel free to point out other spots that need attention!


End file.
